Readme file for the replication of the aggregate evidence of the paper
"The Heterogeneous Response of Real Estate Prices during the Covid-19 Pandemic,"
 by Sandro Heiniger, Winfried Koeniger, Michael Lechner
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The following steps reproduce the aggregate evidence reported in the paper:

1. Paste the directory "Evidence_from_real_estate_funds" (with all its subfolders) into the 
   working directory, e.g., "C:\work_temp".
   If you use a different name, adjust the paths in the programs accordingly.
   The codes are contained in the folder "codes."
   The data retrieved from YahooFinance on October 24, 2021 are contained in the folder "data_backup".
   Executing the programs, as explained below, writes output into the subfolders "growth_rates" and "plot".

2. Use the software R to execute the program "calculate_growth_rates.R"
   Then, use the software Matlab to execute the program "compute_growth_rate_statistics.m".
   In the command window, you will see the values reported in Table 4 of the paper.

3. Use the software R to execute the program "create_plots.R"
   You obtain Figure 1 of the paper.  